Stacker-Sustainability & Climate

It’s a sight that stops Florida boaters and beachgoers in their tracks: a thick green sludge coating the water, smelling of rotten eggs and dead fish. Ashley Smyth, a coastal biogeochemist at the University of Florida, likens the color and consistency to guacamole. “I used to say pea soup, but then I moved to Florida,

In Los Angeles, in Mumbai, in Kuala Lumpur and in several other cities around the planet, autonomous plastic-eating robots are taking over the waterways. They are, in one form or other, chomping up and extracting masses of the manmade garbage. This may sound like a far-flung scene from science fiction. But these waterborne “interceptors” —

Canada needs to raise $115 billion by 2050 to meet its net-zero targets. Where will that money come from? Increasingly, the answer is private capital — pension funds, banks, and investors deciding where to put their money. But there’s a problem: Right now, nothing stops a company from calling any investment “green” if it feels

This story starts with a sunset. Pavement gives way to a two-lane bridge that connects one side of Machias, Maine, to the other. From a distance, the bridge looks like it’s floating on the water underneath it. In reality, it’s built atop a dike that prevents the saltwater tides of Machias Bay from reaching the

Jeff Hough did not pull any punches. What his fellow Republican county commissioners were about to do, he said to the packed courthouse, would violate America’s founding ideals. He quoted the Declaration of Independence to make his case. The three-person commission was about to vote on an ordinance that would ban utility-scale solar and wind

Inside the vast Qcells factory in Cartersville, Georgia, workers — and a bevy of robots — move ultra-thin slices of polysilicon through a lengthy series of machines and chemical baths to get what are known as cells. “The $2.5 billion, the 3.5 million gallons of water, the 90 megawatts of power, the 60 tons of

  “Protect our water,” “Water for people not AI,” “Don’t mess with our water,” declare protest signs from Texas to New Mexico to Arizona. Angered by water use, energy consumption and pollution, locals are increasingly protesting the rapid expansion of data centers in the United States as tech companies work to rapidly expand capacity for

  When wildfire smoke blanketed northern Michigan skies in July, Kasey Wierzba thought the vineyard at Shady Lane Cellars in Suttons Bay looked like a different planet. “That kind of pinky, peachy haze really was filtering through the whole vineyard. The visibility was really minimal,” said Wierzba, the general manager and executive winemaker at Shady

  Only knee-deep in parts yet relatively wide, the Bièvre gently flows with transparent waters that shimmer in the afternoon sun. A shoal of fish lazily linger beside a large stone in one section. Further along, birds and butterflies weave between the long grasses lining the banks. From here, the waterway continues 10 kilometers north

  Wildfires are evolving in the United States, becoming increasingly intense, frequent, and destructive in the built environment. For those who live outside wildfire-prone states, understanding the origins and impact of these blazes can be difficult. Yet, wildfire awareness is increasingly a national priority, especially in the wildland-urban interface, also known as WUI — where

  Vinyl record and CD sales are through the roof, telecom companies are recreating dumbphones, and lo-fi digital and disposable cameras are making a comeback, along with Pokémon, Furbys, and Bratz—the latter thanks to Kylie Jenner’s new line a couple of years ago. As many are finding joy and entertainment in the rebooted toys of

  For the past two years, more than a dozen major banks have been not only reneging on their climate commitments, they’ve been actively making the crisis worse, Grist reports. In 2024 and 2025, during the leadup to President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, all six of the nation’s largest banks abandoned the Net-Zero Banking Alliance,

  What’s a winemaker to do on a warming planet? Much has been written about how climate change threatens viticulture around the globe — or at least, threatens to fundamentally change the practice. A long-lasting drought in Chile is forcing winemakers to rethink irrigation systems. Vintners in California must not only endure wildfires but also

  At first glance, Lent Hill Dairy Farm in Steuben County, New York, looks like most other industrial dairies. There are red buildings that house some 4,000 cows, a staggering manure pit and two gigantic domelike structures that serve as anaerobic co-digesters. These giant machines break down manure and local food waste to produce biogas.

  Solar energy just provided more electricity in the United States than coal for the first time on record — marking a milestone for the rise of renewables in America. While gas and nuclear plants still lead the country’s energy mix, solar contributed 12.8% of the nation’s electricity in May, according to an analysis of

The Narwhal reports Canada’s largest nickel mine aims to utilize carbon-capturing brucite in its waste to store over a megatonne of CO2 annually.

Grist reports that Finland is using waste heat from Bitcoin mining to warm homes, highlighting both potential benefits and environmental concerns.

Atmos reports on the significance of understanding rocks to address climate issues.